Europe is uniting. At least, that is the idea. A requirement to be part of the European unification project is the transposition of the EU acquis, meaning that aspiring EU Member States need to take all EU laws and incorporate them into nationally legal frameworks. The transposition of rail regulations could open up new markets and streamline rail freight with more countries.
For this iteration of Data of the week, we are going to look at the state of transposition of the EU acquis relating to rail in the Western Balkans, Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia. The international organisation Transport Community, which helps the Western Balkans to integrate into the EU transport network, keeps track of this progress and provides data on the matter.
Transport Community has published two separate reports, detailing the progress made in the Western Balkans, including their “Next Generation Rail Action Plans”, and in Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia. The organisation thus details the rate of transposition of EU law, but also progress made on broader action plans. Those include not only transposition of laws, but also other measures, like EU cooperation, sustainability measures, infrastructure projects or operational improvements.
Progress in Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia
These reports offer some interesting insights into the state of rail integration in the region. Let’s begin by looking at Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia. Progress on the adoption of EU regulations is very limited, with Georgia taking the lead.
The country has fully adopted half the regulations on train driver licensing and around a third of the acquis on railway safety. It lags behind on interoperability, having adopted none of the regulations. That may not be all that surprising, considering that Georgia is far away from the European rail network. Interoperability is likely low on the priority list, especially considering the importance of transit freight from Azerbaijan and Russia.
The EU integration process of Georgia has essentially halted, and one should not necessarily expect further progress on rail regulation alignment. Due to the country’s location, one could say that this is not exactly a catastrophe. Georgia is of limited relevance to the EU’s rail network, occupying a more important position on the INSTC and Middle Corridor.
No full transposition
Neither Moldova nor Ukraine has fully implemented any aspect of the EU rail acquis. Moldova has made some progress across every area (working time and passenger rights, safety, interoperability, train driver licensing and market access), save one (a regulation relating to ERA). It has not fully implemented anything yet, however.
The same applies to Ukraine, but Transport Community notes that many draft pieces of legislation are currently awaiting adoption. That could significantly boost the rate of EU acquis adoption in Ukraine in the near future.
Progress in the Western Balkans
Let’s move on to the Western Balkans and take a look at the action plan for the region. Note that this goes beyond just the transposition of the EU acquis, but includes additional measures along key pillars: rail market access, interoperability, infrastructure modernisation, safety, driver licensing, regional cooperation and sustainable and multimodal measures. See the graph below for an overview of progress made (hover over the bars to get additional information).
On a national level, it is interesting to look at the rate of transposition of EU rail regulations. There is one clear champion in that area: Serbia. That is perhaps not entirely surprising, since the country has significant EU transit flows. Aligning itself with EU practices helps to streamline those operations, such as imports from the Greek port of Piraeus that travel towards logistics hubs in Hungary.
Serbia is the only country that has transposed a significant share of regulations relating to market access (7 out of 16) and has partially transposed two. The market access rules are supposed to improve competitiveness and create fair business conditions.
Albania follows behind Serbia with 5 regulations on market access fully transposed. All the others – North Macedonia, Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro have barely implemented any market access regulations.
In terms of adopting interoperability measures, we have another champion: Montenegro. It has fully transposed 14 out of 22 legal acts. Those include TSIs on infrastructure, energy, locomotives, noise, safety in tunnels, control command and signalling and freight wagons. Serbia follows closely behind Montenegro, and Albania and Kosovo also have relatively good scores (41% partially transposed).
The key takeaway from the Western Balkans is that Serbia is far ahead of the rest, likely thanks to its key role as a transit country. Albania also performs well in adopting EU regulations. The others have fewer incentives to align themselves, and are therefore behind. The idea is that aligning with EU regulations will open up rail markets and allow for more competitive business, but success also depends on the rate of implementation in neighbouring countries, Transport Community points out.